Technological Imagination
Or, "After all... Tomorrow is another (technologically better) day!" "This Changes Everything (Again)" As technological advancements are accruing at a historically unparalleled rate, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay up to date with the latest technological and scientific breakthroughs. What is new today might be old news tomorrow. Science and technology, by nature, are in constant motion as they proliferate and build upon the body of knowledge that has been previously accumulated. Innovation is therefore a continuous cumulative cycle. Despite this fact, there is a historical societal tendency to view a certain piece of new technology as the harbinger of a new era in which our most far-fetched imaginations about technology have been met through scientific innovation. As Mosco argues, with every significant advancement in communication media, there is a belief that "this technology changes everything. Nothing will ever be the same again." (119). He argues that it is as if the world is in a constant state of amnesia, forgetting that the previous significant advancement that was touted as the technology that will "change everything" and fix everything that ails society fell short of its forecast (117). Again and again, we look to the future for answers. When the new is no longer new and the spectacular becomes the vernacular, it is through imaginations of imminent technology that we imagine a future rife with possibility and the promise of an utopia. Today's Imaginings of Tomorrow Continuing in the same vein Mosco's argument, Sturken and Thomas examine how, just like the technologies described by Mosco, the internet has ushered promises of "solving the long-standing problems of education, making bureaucracies function better, creating a global community ..., empowering the disenfranchised, and forever altering the roles of consumer and producer." (1). Still in the midst of the zenith of this technology, the potential for the internet to solve all of these problems is contestable and given our history with communication technologies, it would be safe to assume that the medium will eventually fail us once again. This repeated forward-looking tendency in regards to technology is what some scholars have termed "technological imagination." More specifically, Balsamo defines technological imagination as : a mindset that enables people to think with technology, to transform what is known into what is possible. This imagination is performative: it improvises within constraints to create something new. It is through the exercise of their technological imaginations that people engage in the materiality of the world, creating the conditions for the future world-making (6). It is the promised transformative nature of technology that is of such allure. (A better life is just beyond the horizon!) Technological imaginings can be a way for humans to pacify themselves with the promise of a better future. As Sturken and Thomas state, we are in "social denial. refuse to confront fully the deeper causes of societal problems and the complexity of human interaction" (3). This can be seen in much of the discourse surrounding new technologies in the private sphere of the home. The home, representing a refuge from the uncontrollable outside world is by no means an infallibly secure place. Given societal anxieties about the outside world and the natural human will for control over the unforseeable, it is understandable that narratives surrounding the future home involve integrated and improved means of contact to the outisde world, communicativity among all devices and appliances in the home and monitoring of dwellers in and outside the home. If the outside represents disarray and ambiguity and the home represents an organized and intelligent haven from the chaos, then new technologies, as demonstrated in the video embedded, inevitably aim for the individual to aspire to own a home that can be more united, cohesive and safe. The home can and will be your utopia, and you don't ever have to leave! Visions of the Sci-Fi Kind Though technological imagination has heretofore been treated as utopian vision, imaginings of future technologies can carry with them visions of dystopia. As Sturken and Thomas explain, "the belief that communication technologies can promote human connectivity is coupled with the fear that actual human connection has been inevitably lost" (3). Nowhere is this binary vision of the future more palpable than in representations of science fiction. Sobchack argues that science fiction films are representative of "fears and desires about technology not as it might be in the future but as we experience it in the present" (145). She adds that "fictional representations frequently serve as the impetus and model for future social action" (148). Consider the film Gattaca, which takes place in a not-so-distant future in which genetic engineering has become standardized, creating a world full of nearly defectless human beings. It presents the audience with a seemingly utopic future that we desire (the end of illness) while painting a dystopian present for the protagonist whose exitence was not biomedically engineered. Science fiction is thus a tool that serves many functions: it can guide the trajectory for future technologies, strike awe of a better future among its audience and be seen as a cautionary tale about the current rapid development of new technologies. What's the Solution? Despite our visions of the future, be they good or bad, no miracle cure will come from the next technology. It is becoming increasingly clear that we must instead look to present solutions to problems. Mediums and technologies are objective beings; they are only tools. They therefore will never fix a problem. It is the human component of our existence -- our agency -- that is both the cause and the solution. Works Cited Mosco, Vincent. The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power and Cyberspace. ''Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Print. Sobchak, Vivian. "Science Fiction Film and the Technological Imagination."''Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technologies. Ed. Marita Sturken and Douglas Thomas. Philidelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004. 145-58. Print. Sturken, Marita, Douglas Thomas. "Introduction: Technological Visions and the Rhetoric of the New." ''Technological Visions: The Hopes and Fears that Shape New Technologies. ''Ed. Marita Sturken and Douglas Thomas. Philidelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004. 1-18. Print.